TRAPPIST AFTERLAND

Trappist Afterland biography
Founded in 2010, Trappist Afterland was the brainchild of Australian singer/songwriter Adam Geoffrey Cole, based in Melbourne. According to Cole, the band's name is "a joke concerning a heavenly place drinking monk ale for eternity," and also a reference to his prior duo Happily Ever Afterland Band, which ended when his best friend and collaborator Neil Sweeney moved back to the United States.

Playing a self-described Gnostic folk music, Trappist Afterland was a vessel for Cole's esoteric Christianity, which remained the heart of the band's concept albums, in which an ever-changing array of musicians came and left the lineup. Primary influences included early 1970's progressive and psychedelic bands, Indian classical music, gamelan, free jazz and Comus, Can Am Des Puig and In Gowan Ring, with particular inspiration from formative Christian acid folk groups like the Trees Community, Caedmon, Perry Leopold and Silmaril. In late 2020, Trappist Afterland released their ninth and final LP, recorded during a period of intense personal growth in Cole's life which prompted him to put the project to rest and begin issuing music under his given name in 2021, moving away from the Gnostic themes which dominated his earlier work.

Cole's ritualistic and meditative style has drawn comparisons to friends and tour partners Stone Breath, United Bible Studies, In Gowan Ring and the Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus, as well as Tír na nÓg, Dr. Strangely Strange and Strawbs.


- Gordy, January 2023